MEDIA MATTERS
YouTube star summoned to White House?
Promises radio talk show first interview afterwards
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Posted: March 26, 2009
11:45 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
The man who created two phenomenally successful "We The People" YouTube videos urging Americans to stand up against Congress and reclaim their republic now – or perhaps lose it forever – reportedly has been summoned to the White House by President Obama to discuss the subject matter of the short films.
Bob Basso, who posts videos under the name funbobbasso on YouTube, has created videos in which he portrays Thomas Paine, author of the "Common Sense" pamphlet that made the case for independence during the American Revolution.
Basso, whose website offers his services as a motivational speaker, uses the YouTube presentations to condemn "non-representing representatives" and warns, "Only when they feel the almighty wrath of 'We The People' marching in the streets from California to New York shouting 'We're mad as hell and we want our country back' will they get the message they work for you."
He was scheduled this week to appear on the "Jerry Doyle Show" when he told the radio host that Obama had personally invited him to meet in the White House "to discuss the disturbing nature of the videos."
According to a spokesman for Doyle's show, at the time when Basso was supposed to be calling in for the show, he was unavailable. Basso reached the show several hours later, explaining he had been flooded by media calls and literally was unable to call out.
The result, the spokesman said, was that Basso promised to provide Doyle with the first exclusive interview after he meets with Obama, provided the invitation still stands after the meeting was leaked to the press.
The spokesman said information about the meeting has not been made public, and show producers are waiting to see what develops. A WND message left for Basso was not immediately returned.
The Doyle show reaches about 3 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, and is the fastest growing show in Talk Radio Network Enterprises' history with more than 240 stations.
In his second video, which has been seen more than 1.1 million times, Basso challenges people to let Congress know their displeasure by sending tea bags. It is embedded here:
He criticizes Congress for approving the "largest spending bill in history without reading it" and criticizes American citizens, because "you did nothing."
He raises the issue of billions of dollars for benefits for illegal aliens, the exportation of U.S. jobs overseas and others.
"If your self-serving Congress were a business they'd all be in jail now," he said.
"Wake up, America. While you were playing with the toys of your consumer wealth, you lost much more than your bloated economy of living beyond your means. You lost your representative democracy. Your servants have become your masters. Taxation without representation is tyranny," he said.
He's equally unhappy with Americans in the first video, embedded here:
In that piece he warns of the problem of supporting the rest of the world while America needs to be rebuilt.
Referring to "progressives," he said, "We had another word in 1776. We called them traitors."
Basso is the author of the best-selling book "This Job Should Be Fun" along with 10 other books, including "Lighten Up Corporate America!"
A former award winning news director for NBC TV and visiting professor at UCLA, Basso has a Ph.D in communications.
Doyle's distinctive repertoire includes former Wall Street insider, TV star and jet pilot. He has starred in many made-for-TV movies, but is best known as the character Michael Garibaldi on the Emmy winning Sci-fi television series "Babylon 5," which ran for five years.
